The Summoner's Tales
by Poke-Melody
Summary: Most of the Order believed that Kiran's life before being summoned must have been boring. Oh, how wrong they were! A series of one shots with Kiran telling weird stories from their world to the Order and enjoying the shock, horror, and amused expressions of their friends. I'm using real stories of things that have happened to me personally for this.
1. Kiran's Battle with a Knife Wielding Gre

Kiran tells Princess Sharena and Princess Fjorm about the time a four-year-old neighbor thought it was a great idea to bring a knife outside to show the other kids.

Content warning:  
-hinted violence  
-knives  
-lack of parental supervision

"I gotta say, I'm kinda jealous of you, Kiran. You must have had a pretty awesome time in your world..." Sharena said while she, Fjorm, and the Summoner where sitting down together enjoying tea.

Kiran couldn't help but chuckle.

"Oh I had a lot of problems in my world, Sharena. Granted, they were different from the kind's we have here, but they were still there."

"How different were they?" asked Fjorm. "They couldn't have been that much different from here."

"As far as I've seen, I haven't had any repeats of any weird things that happened to me in my world here. I'm honestly surprised that a kid hasn't tried to stab me again..." Kiran said taking a sip of their tea.

"Woah, woah, woah. What?! A kid tried to stab you in your world?!" Sharena cried almost spitting out her tea. Fjorm's expression looking as horrified as Sharena's. Kiran brought their hand to their mouth and gave a small smile.

"Have I not told you guys this story?" Kiran asked with a mischievous glint in their eye.

"No!" they both cried leaning forward on the table toward Kiran. Kiran's smile got bigger at the chance to tell their friends about one of their craziest encounters back in their world.

"Oh-ho! This is one of my favorite stories to tell because of how unreal it was." Kiran said, rubbing their hands together. "So, back when I was in middle school, I lived in this 'not-so-safe' neighborhood. A lot of creeps and domestic violence and stuff. But nothing from there was as bad as the time my four-year-old neighbor got so angry at another kid he snuck a knife out to hurt the other kids."

The look on the Princess's faces was great and Kiran started the story from the beginning.

-

Kiran was enjoying a nice walk around their apartment complex. It was a nice day and Kiran had their favorite music playing from their headphones. Their little sister was playing with her friends not too far off in the small courtyard between their building and another. Kiran was taking their walk on the sidewalk on the side of the other building when they heard a lot of screaming.

Kiran took their headphones out and jogged over to where all the younger kids where. Since it was mostly kids, Kiran figured that one had probably tripped and scraped their knee. It wouldn't be the first time, but Kiran figured they should check on them just in case since no adult was out there.

Kiran peaked out from the corner and saw their sister on the other side of the building, hiding. When their sister made eye contact with them they pointed over to a young blond boy and mouthed 'knife'. Kiran turned their attention to where their sister was pointing and saw the boys who normally sitting around each other playing on their ds's where huddled up as the young blond kid was swinging something around. Looking closer, Kiran could indeed see a knife in the kid's hand.

Kiran took a few steps back so they wouldn't be seen and have some time to think. Kiran was the oldest one outside right now, there were no adults nearby, so Kiran was the one who had to do something. Kiran knew one of the little boys who played outside's mom. She lived on the first floor, Kiran could run over and bang on her glass door to get her attention. But the door was right next to where the kid was, and the kid could catch them before the mom came out.

Kiran thought about running to another entrance to the building but those sometimes would never unlock and get stuck, the kid would definitely catch them that way. The kid's mom lived in the same building as them but she lived all the way up on the third floor, Kiran wasn't sure they could get up there before someone got hurt.  
When Kiran looked back to see what was happening the noticed the kid moved and was brandishing it at another group of kids, that was too close to their sister. Kiran looked over at the entrance the kid was standing near when they first saw him and saw that someone had wedged part of the rug from inside between it to keep the door open. Kiran realized that this could be their only chance to get help. If they were quick enough, they could run across the quartyard, get to the door, close it and lock it, and run to get an adult.

The moment the kid was facing away from Kiran's general direction Kiran booked it towards the door. Once they got there they bent down to pick up the rug and slammed the door closed in time for the kid to come right up to them on the other side. The door being made of really thick glass and Kiran knew the kid wasn't strong enough to break through it. Then Kiran got a new idea. Maybe they could distract the kid long enough through the door until an adult did come by. That way they didn't leave all the younger kids unsupervised and Kiran was safe while trying to buy time.

Kiran didn't even begin their plan when the boy's mother came stomping down the stairs. Apparently noticing a knife was missing in her house. The shouting match the mother and the kid had was all kind of a blur to Kiran, they were just happy no one got hurt. Once the kid was out of sight, a lot of the kids decided to call it a day and go home. Kiran and their sister headed up to their apartment and explained what happened to their mom.  
They decided to spend the rest of the day resting and watching Disney sitcoms.

-

Sharena and Fjorm could only stare in shock. Kiran soaked-in their speechlessness.

"Wow..." was all Fjorm could mutter.

"Was that kind of thing a daily problem?" Sharena asked.

"Gosh no!" Kiran laughed. "Thankfully that was a one time thing, my sister and I tried to avoid going outside when he was out for a while after that. If it makes you feel any better, that family got so many restraining orders against them they were eventually evicted not too long after that. So we didn't have to deal with them for much longer."

"I am very thankful no one was hurt." Fjorm sighed holding a hand to her chest.

"Me too." said Kiran, resting their head on the table in their arms. "I honestly doubt the kid was gonna try and hurt anyone. I think he was doing it to scare everybody or something, but I wasn't taking any chances."

"Please tell me that's the only 'crazy' thing that has ever happened to you..." Fjorm said.

"Oh no! I just wanted to start these kind of stories off with a bang is all. The others aren't as exciting compared to that one but they are just as weird." Kiran smiled.


	2. Awkward PDA

Kiran didn't really mind PDA. At least, if it wasn't too heated and it wasn't keeping Kiran from doing something they needed to do.

Like right now...

Kiran was trying to make their way through a narrow hallway to try and get to a meeting with Alfonse but had to stop because Chrom and Robin decided this hallway was the perfect place to have a make out session. The hall was so narrow that they would need to ask them to move to make it through. Kiran thought back to the advice their friend gave them back in high school for when this kinda thing would happen. Push them apart yelling 'Excuse me!'. But Chrom was a prince, and that would just be plain rude. But they were really starting to run late on their meeting. But Kiran got embarrassed at the thought of interrupting this... special moment.

Sighing, Kiran knew there wasn't much they could do without embarrassing everyone in the hall and decided to exit the hallway and take a seat in the next room with a book and simply waited for the two to finish.

It was a good ten minutes when Kiran took another look outside and they were still going at it! Didn't these people ever need to breath or something?  
Kiran was really late for their meeting now.

Although it was right then that the couple decided they had had enough and started to exit the hallway.

'Finally!' Kiran internally cheered, and started to make their way to the library.

When they finally opened the library doors they spotted Alfonse sitting down at a table, arms crossed and looking annoyed.

"Kiran, I get that you're busy. But please tell me if something comes up and we need to reschedule instead of sitting here getting nothing done."

"I-I'm really sorry, Al. I ran into a bit of a... heated problem that I needed to wait out." Kiran said sheepishly rubbing the back of their neck.

"Heated? Was there a fight or something?" Alfonse asked standing up, looking concerned.

"Not exactly?"

Alfonse raised an eyebrow, silently asking his Summoner to elaborate.

"Okay, Chrom and Robin where in that super narrow hallway making out and I couldn't get passed them. I was too embarrassed to ask them to move and too afraid I'd get lost if I'd try to take another way around."

Alfonse let out a chuckle.

"I'm guessing this wasn't all that common in your world or you would never get anything done, huh?"

"No," Kiran sighed taking a seat and putting their head on the table. "I've actually been late to a lot of things because of stuff like this. One time in middle school, I was late for band 'cause someone was doing that in front of the classroom door."

"Band?"

"School band, it was kinda a part of my school day and I would get together with a bunch of other students and a teacher would conduct us to play music and stuff. But that's another story for another day." Kiran said as they began to recall the awkward mission to get their clarinet.

When Kiran was in 8th grade, a large part of their grade went on a big field trip that would last a few days. They couldn't afford to go on this trip so sadly they were stuck at school. Since so many members of the grade where gone the remaining teachers decided to close up their end of the hallway and have everyone in one classroom in the other hallway.

But sadly they didn't let anyone know the day before and Kiran decided to leave their clarinet in their locker that night, and their lockers happened to be in the classrooms in the closed hallway.

Kiran checked the clock, they had enough time to sneak in through that hall, grab their clarinet, and make it to band before class started. Kiran carefully snuck away from their class and made their way to their homeroom.

Run in, grab clarinet, run out. Easy.

At least that's what they thought until they got into the hallway. It appeared Kiran wasn't the only one who had the idea to sneak away from class and go to the closed hallway. As they rounded the corner they saw two of their classmates leaning up against the classroom door, making out.

Okay, not a big deal, the classroom had two doors. They quickly made their way across the hall to the free door and tried to open it, but it was locked.

'You gotta be kidding me!' Kiran cried a little on the inside.

They had two options here. One, they interpret the couple and use that door to grab their clarinet and deal with the embarrassment for the rest of the day. Or two, go to band without their clarinet and risk being punished by doing pushups. Kiran looked down, they were wearing a dress. Embarrassment it was.

"I-I-I'm really sorry, excuse me." Kiran stuttered out as they made their way towards the couple motioning for the door.

The couple blushed and let them through. Kiran ran to their locker, grabbed their clarinet case and booked out the room, letting out another 'sorry' before making their way to the band room.

"And that wasn't even the last time that happened." Kiran cried holding their head to the table in embarrassment. "Stop laughing, Al it's not funny!"

"It's pretty funny." Alfonse said between his chuckles. "But next time you should tell me more about this school band and why the conductor would make you do push ups."

"Trust me, that's a whole other story." Kiran smiled.


	3. Kiran's Endless Amounts of Patience

"I honestly cannot believe you right now, Kiran! How dumb are you?!" Almost the entire castle could hear Soren's rant.

The Summoner had made a mistake in their planning and had sent a lance user against an ax user and Soren refuses to let them off easy.

"I'm sorry, I made a mistake. Nobody got hurt so can we just leave it alone?" Kiran asked, tired of listening to Soren's forty-five minute long lecture.

"No we can't..." Soren's rant continued. Kiran continued to sit and suffer his tirade for another thirty minutes before Soren finally felt like they had suffered enough and had left them.

"I have no idea how you were able to sit through that, Kiran..." Laegjarn shook her head, taking a seat across from Kiran and next to her sister.

"If I were you I would've punched that asshole right in the face." grumbled Helbindi from his spot across the room. Kiran couldn't help but laugh.

"Trust me, I have mastered the art of having someone scream at me and not crying until I get in my room." they smirked.

"You act like that's a good thing." said Laevatein.

"What the hell kind of situation where you in that you had to gain that kind of skill?" asked Laegjarn.

"Retail." was all the Summoner said, leaning back in their chair.

"The hell is retail?" Helbindi asked, causing the Summoner to lean back forward covering their mouth.

"You guys don't know what retail is?" they snickered.

"Never heard of it." said Laevatein. "What is it?"

"Alright, so... how do I explain retail..." Kiran thought out loud. "It's basically what we call working in a store, to put it simply."

"That's it?" Laevatein asked. "That doesn't sound too bad."

"Oh you poor child..." Kiran shook their head. "You don't know pure terror until a middle aged woman screams in your face and threatens you for not giving her a discount."

"What...?" Helbindi trailed off. Kiran noticed him subtly making his way closer to the group to hear the story better.

"Working in stores or anything related to customer service is where you meet the worst in everyday people, trust me. Like, one the stupidest things I've had to put up with was stay a half hour past closing because a guy couldn't decide on soap."

"Explain." was all Laegjarn needed to say for Kiran to begin their story.

Kiran had almost gotten through their first day of training at the department store they recently started working at. Their feet hurt from standing for three hours, they had gotten yelled at by at least two customers, and where starving due to it being passed the time they'd normally eat dinner and hadn't had enough time to eat much during their break. The boy training them had made the fifteen minute closing announcement ten minutes ago and would start closing up the store soon.

You know, if that one guy would stop looking at suits and leave already!

He didn't even look all that interested in them. He was just pushing them aside with one hand, not even taking a full second to look at them. Kiran let out a small sigh of relief when the man started to make his towards the exit. But then the man's attention was grabbed by the stand of colorful bottles of soap.

'So close!' Kiran thought to themself.

The man said nothing while slowly looking through the soaps, uncapping each one by one to smell the contents of the bottle. It had to be about fifteen minutes after closing for the man to finally decide on a soap and walked up to the register.

The man started a conversation with Kiran and their co-worker like he hadn't just kept the entire store from starting to close. He was about to take out his card to pay for the soap when he saw the sign.

That damn sign!

"Oh, I can get one for free if I buy two!" the man smiled and made his way back toward the soap shelf.

Son of a bitch!

It took another ten minutes for the man to decide on two more soap bottles. He came back with a smile on his face.

'At least one of us is happy.' Kiran thought angrily.

The rest of the transaction went pretty well. The man, happy with his purchase started to make his way out of the store. But took a second to look up and noticed a lot of the lights where starting to turn off.

"Oh, are you guys closing soon?"  
"We closed a half-hour ago, sir." Kiran's co-worker muttered.

"Oh, if I've kept you this late do you think I can stay for a bit longer to try on some of those suits?"

Kiran's story was interrupted by hysterical laughing. Kiran turned to see that it was Laevatein who was laughing. She was laughing so hard she was hitting the table. Kiran didn't even know she could laugh.

"Is it really that funny?" Kiran asked, smiling.

"That's probably one of the funniest things I've ever heard!" Laevatein cried between laughs. She actually had to wipe a few tears from her eyes she was laughing so much.

Helbindi looked like he was trying to keep a straight face but was failing. Looking over at Laegjarn showed she was in a similar situation but looked so happy to see Laevatein laughing like she was.

"Well, if you like that, I had like three other jobs involving customer service." Kiran laughed.


	4. Black & White Feelings

In this chapter there are a few warnings:  
Mentions of death, abuse, and child abuse.

This ones a bit different from the rest of the story. My grandfather on my mom's side died yesterday and I've been feeling kinda off since. So I wanted to write a small story about how I was feeling, and share with Alfonse. I promise the chapters after this will go back to the funny, goofy stories.

Kiran couldn't help but glance over at Alfonse's room. He had retreated there not long after they got back to the castle. The look in Alfonse's eye scared them. He didn't look like himself at all. Kiran's not surprised though. His father had taken Hel's curse for him and now he has to live like that. Kiran was devastated, they could only wonder how much worse Alfonse felt. They think to themselves about what they should do. They normally liked to be left alone when grieving but at the same time, wanted to be comforted. Maybe they'll give Alfonse the night to himself and see him the next day.

Sharena was definitely the kind of person who needed comfort when grieving. Kiran did all they could but she eventually decided she wanted some time just between her and her mom. Queen Henrietta was trying so hard to be strong for her daughter, after all, that man was the love of her life. Kiran decided to pick up a little more work to ease everyone's nerves. With the royal family grieving like they were, Kiran knew they would have some extra time on their hands anyway.

It was while Kiran was making their way back to their room that they heard some loud noises coming from Alfonse's room. Kiran panicked a bit. They knew that grief could cause people to act irrationally so they threw manners in the wind and barged into his room.

They were somewhat relieved to see that the noise was caused but Alfonse knocking some things off the table. Kiran scanned the room until they finally spotted their prince, sitting by his bed, knees pulled to his chest.

"H-Hey, Alfonse? You doing okay?" Kiran asked, taking slow steps towards him.

"Go away, Kiran." Alfonse grumbled, not even looking up at them.

"I don't think I should, Alfonse. You've been in here all day, I think you need a friend right now." Kiran said, walking closer.

Alfonse didn't respond to that, so Kiran took that as an invitation to sit with him. They didn't sit too close, knowing Alfonse probably still wanted a little bit of space.

"I don't know what I'm feeling right now, Kiran." Alfonse said, head pushing more into his arms.

"That's normal, Alfonse." Kiran said. "Everybody deals with this kind of thing differently."

"I'm mad at him, though. What gives him the right to do that when he's been like he has to me all my life? What gives him the right to finally say he loves me as his dying breath? What gives him the right to make me feel guilty for all these feelings, Kiran?"

"Al, can I tell you something that happened to my family back in my world?"

"Of course."

"When my dad's father died, things were weird. To be completely honest, I wasn't all to close with him. If anything, I resented him."

"You did?"

"Yeah, he was not nice to my dad at all. He would lock my dad out of the house as punishment for something as simple as an argument they had. He's even the reason why my I never met my grandmother. From what I heard, he was so terrible to her she ran away, leaving my dad and aunt with him."

"I'm sorry." was all Alfonse could think to say.

"Don't be, the point I'm trying to make about this is when he died I didn't understand why my dad cried like he did. This was a man that caused him to grow up much faster then he should have. My dad worked so hard to not be like his dad that I didn't quite understand why he was sad. If anything, I think I started to hate my grandfather more when he died for how he was making my dad feel. What I'm saying is that feelings like these are confusing. You might not always understand them, but there's probably a reason why your feeling the way you are right now."

"I still feel guilty though."

"That's how I felt when my mom's parents died. The last time I saw my grandmother alive I wasn't all that kind."

"You weren't?" Alfonse asked, sounding surprised.

"Yeah, I was recovering from an allergic reaction that caused me to breakout in hives. When I came to visit I was still covered in the rash, so all my family kept rubbing at me and getting into my personal space. I was also taking a medicine that was known to make people more easily upset. One night at dinner, my grandmother started rubbing my arm saying how painful the rash looked and I just snapped. It wasn't too bad, but I never had once raised my voice at my grandparents. I went home a few days later, and a few months after that she died. Sometimes I still feel bad about how I acted the last time I saw her; but whenever I feel like that, I tell myself that it was something small and she knew I was sick and was on that medicine so she probably didn't take it the wrong way."

"What about your grandfather?" Alfonse asked.

"It was a bit weird when he died. We were really close, but I think I only cried for a good five minutes. Although to be fair, I was in a weird depressed state after that. It was hard for me to do the housework that was normally no problem for me. I had a hard time doing things that I found fun for a day afterwards. But I also knew my grandfather hated whenever I would get like that when he was around so I forced myself to snap out of it. I couldn't go to his funeral but I decided to make things as easy for my mom as much as I could. That honestly made me feel a lot better."

"It did?"

"Of course. I just want you to know that sometimes we don't always react the way we expect ourselves to, and it's okay. I also want to let you know that King Gustav wouldn't want to be responsible for making you feel like this." Kiran smiled.

Alfonse smiled back.

"I'm sorry I ended up talking about my family instead of comforting you, I guess I just wanted you to know you're not alone in this regard..."

"No." Alfonse said. "Hearing how you handled grief with your family actually makes me feel a lot better. Thank you, thank you so much, Kiran."

Alfonse surprised Kiran by giving them a tight hug. It was then that Kiran knew that Alfonse was going to be alright.


	5. 48 Hours of Parenthood

Another high pitched scream had filled that castle hallways. Kiran was sitting with Gunthra, Hrid, Fjorm, and Ylgr when the next cry came, causing everyone to flinch. A servant in the castle had recently had a baby, so the castle has been a bit louder than usual.

Ylgr, who was being taught a hand game with Kiran had noticed the stressed out look on the Summoners face.

"Kiran, is everything okay?" Ylgr asked.

Kiran snapped out of their concentration on the game and looked to Ylgr.

"Huh? Oh, yeah I'm fine. Just the crying is giving me some unwanted flashbacks from a class I took back in high school is all." Kiran smiled.

"Why would a baby crying remind you of a class?" Gunthra asked, not even looking up from her book.

"Oh, I took a class in high school about child care. One of the big assignments I had for that class was to take care of a baby, is all."

"You're teacher gave you someone's baby?!" Fjorm cried in shock. Kiran could only laugh at her reaction.

"No,no" they laughed. "It was a doll, but it cried like a real baby. I had to take care of it like I would a real baby for a weekend."

"You have baby dolls that cry in your world?" Ylgr asked. "That's so cool!"

"Yeah, it's only cool if you can turn it off. If you can't, like the doll for my assignment, it's a nightmare."

"Come on, it couldn't be that bad." Gunthra laughed.

"Kiran, it's your turn to watch the doll for the weekend." Kiran's teacher said, without looking up from her paper.

Kiran groaned. They were dreading this assignment since the class started. They had only taken the class to get out of that gym class with that creepy classmate.

"Yes, ma'am." Kiran responded.

It couldn't have been that bad. Half of their class had already done the assignment and they did pretty good. Kiran just hoped that their family didn't need them go out in public with them with the doll or anything.

At the end of the school day, Kiran showed up to the classroom to pick the doll up. The teacher handed them everything they needed for the project. The doll, the chart where Kiran was supposed to record what they did whenever the doll cried, and the keys used to symbolize the baby's needs. Throughout the project, if the baby cried, Kiran would have to check the keys and insert them into the dolls back and record which key calmed the baby down. Each key was labeled 'diaper change', 'bottle', 'burping', ect. There was this one bright red key labeled 'panic'. The teacher said that key was to be used in an event that you quickly need to quiet the baby and you weren't able to go looking for the right key. Doing this would shut the doll down for the rest of the weekend, and resulting into an automatic failure. It was supposed to symbolize a parent going to drastic measures to 'shut the baby up', resulting in the baby either dying or seriously injured.

Kiran was a bit paranoid of accidentally inserting that key without realizing it and failing the project, but tried to not let it bother them too much.

They took everything they would need for the project and started their short walk home. Kiran took a deep breath, it can't be that bad, right? Yeah, it might wake them up in the night occasionally and stuff but they could handle that. As long as they didn't have to go out in public with the doll everything should be fine.

Kiran found out later that night that their little sister was having some sort of event at the middle school and they had to go too...

Great.

It was probably one of the most humiliating nights of Kiran's life. They got so many stares from parents who noticed a high schooler carrying around a doll in a fricken baby carrier! The event involved a lot of walking around the gym and the doll with the carrier was really starting to get heavy. They asked their parents for some help but they said they didn't want to be seen carrying it so they where on their own.

The worst part of the night was when there was a small assembly with everyone sitting down and a few of the teachers taking turns talking into the mic. The gym was near silent except for the teacher's voice when the doll started crying. It was the first time it cried since they got the doll. It was a lot louder than they thought it would be. Adding that to the high ceilings in the gym, the cry echoed so everyone heard the doll. Turning bright red, knowing everybody was looking at them, Kiran furiously searched through the keys to find the right one to make the baby stop crying. They heard a few people near them snickering and even the teacher at the mic was trying not to laugh.

It was gonna be a loooong weekend...

When Monday finally came, Kiran was a mess. They barely got any sleep, the baby going off every half hour it seemed like. They didn't get any homework done for other classes because the baby either interrupted them by crying, or they were so tired the drift off at the table while trying to finish it. Don't even get them started on when their mom insisted they still come to church with that damn thing.

Of course the teacher was late, so Kiran sat outside the classroom door with the doll, waiting so they could finally free themselves of this baby sized demon. When the teacher finally showed up, Kiran eagerly handed in the doll, keys, and their report on the weekend and left the room as quickly as possible.

"Wow, I don't think I'd be able to handle a project like that." Fjorm chuckled.

"Yeah, it was probably one of the worst weekend's of my life." Kiran laughed.

Gunthra, again, not even looking up from her book spoke to her younger sisters. "That was basically my life when the two of you were born."

"I could not have been that bad." Fjorm complained.

"Me too! I'm an angel!" Ylgr cried.

"You two were a bit of a handful." Hrid laughed.

"Shh. Do you guys notice that? No more crying." they smiled.

"Woah, your right." Fjorm said after taking a moment to listen. "We finally have some peace and quiet."

Suddenly there was a loud crash from another room, the crying started up again. It was nice while it lasted.

"I'm going to find whatever Hero who woke that baby up and send them home..." Kiran's eye twitched at the high pitched screaming.

As difficult as the project was, Kiran did learn one important thing. They were NEVER having kids.


	6. Kiran Is Not On the Case

"I know it was one of you!" yelled Ylgr, as Kiran was entering the common area.

"What's going on?" Kiran asked Anna.

"Princess Ylgr had some candy she hidden somewhere and now it's gone. She thinks someone took it."

"So the kid just leaves candy somewhere, someone picks it up; most likely someone who was cleaning, and now she's surprised it's gone?" Kiran chuckled.

Ylgr's mini investigation went on for all of five minutes before a servant came in with the bag of candy asking if this was what she was looking for. Anna and Kiran had left the room, going to the library to work on battle plans.

"You know when I was a little kid, I went to this Summer Camp that someone had broken into one night. I was convinced someone was murdered, I wanted to find out more but people don't take a fourth grader all that seriously with investigating a brake in."

"For real?" Anna chuckled.

"Yeah... wasn't one of my brightest moments." Kiran said, scratching at their cheek.

Kiran and their younger sister got off the bus to their Summer Camp like they did every week day. The moment Kiran stepped off the bus, something didn't feel right. Like, something was wrong. Their sister didn't seem to feel it so they just ignored it. Besides, today was going to be a good day. The ice cream party they've been looking forward to was finally today.

After playing outside for a while with their friends, Kiran noticed that other kids kept trying to get closer to the building before the counselors caught them and brought them back to the playground.

"Hey, Kelly. What happened over there that everyone wants to see?"

"I don't know. I think a window broke last night or something. The counselors don't want us there because of the glass I heard."

"Really? I wonder how it broke..." Kiran thought to themselves.

A little later, once all the other kids had finally arrived, the counselors rounded everyone up to discuss the day's plans like they did everyday.

"So, I know a lot of you are excited for the ice cream party today..." someone started.

A few kids straightened up at the mention of the party.

"But we're sorry. It's going to be canceled."

"What? Why?" various questions were shouted at the counselors.

"We're very sorry, guys. It's just someone or some people broke into the kitchen last night after everyone went home and stole all the ice cream." one of them just came out with it. Not seeing a point in hiding it. "The kitchen was also vandalized so no one is aloud in there for a while."  
Everyone at the camp felt down at the news. It was one of the few treats they were promised at the beginning of the Summer, and now they can't have it.

Later that day, Kiran and a few other kids were walking to a room and they had to walk by the kitchen to get there. To Kiran's surprise, they had left the door open, although they had caution tape pulled across the doorway.  
Kiran decided to take the opportunity to try and see the damage. There was a broken window just like they heard, but there was also something red spilled all over the floor.

"Someone was murdered here." Kiran said out loud. Loud enough for the passing counselor to hear. Which earned them a light tap on the head.

"Don't be stupid, it's paint." they chuckled before leading them away from the crime scene.

"Not gonna lie, was kinda expecting more from that story." Anna said as they neared the library.

"I mean, more may have happened but I was so young I don't really remember much after that."

"Remind me to never go to you for help with solving a mystery."


	7. What's Scarier then Hel? Clowns

"Kiran, how are you not scared of the literal dead surrounding us right now?" Sharena asked.

"I survived the Clown Epidemic of 2016, nothing scares me anymore."

"I'm sorry, the what of what?" Alfonse chimed in, turning around to face Kiran and his sister.

"What's a clown?" Sharena asked.

"Oh yeah, you guys don't really have clowns in this world, do you? Okay, so imagine a jester."

"Okay." they both said.

"Now imagine a jester, but they are wearing an absurd amount of makeup to the point you can't even see any of their features underneath."

"I'm having a hard time picturing that." Alfonse said.

Kiran then pulled a small pad of paper and drew the best clown they could. It was a mix of Pennywise and that 'one scene' of Leo Johnson from Twin Peaks attacking Shelly. It looked pretty scary in Kiran's opinion.

They flipped the book over to show the Askr siblings.

"That's a clown." they said. "In my world, a clown's job is basically to perform and do funny stuff. Not much to it, they mostly perform in a circus or a child's birthday party."

"I will admit, they look kind of creepy but what does that have to do with an epidemic?" Alfonse asked.

"I am glad you asked! So we have something similar to the Harvest Festival called Halloween. You know how people dress up in costumes during the Harvest Festival?"

"Yeah." said Sharena.

"Okay, so because clowns just look creepy, a lot of people like to use clowns as costume ideas. But one year, in the year of 2016, something happened. A few months before Halloween some people started just showing up at parks and places in clown costumes. Like, slowly walking out of the woods dressed as one."

"Why?" asked Alfonse.

"Nobody really knows. There was a movie about a killer clown coming out that year so some people thought it was a publicity stunt but that was never confirmed. What got people worried though was that these clowns were supposedly trying to lure kids into the woods with them, alone. A few people even said they were attacked by some."

"You have to be joking." Sharena laughed.

"I wish I was." Kiran said. "That was a really weird year for America."

"Did you see any?" Alfonse said, slowing his pace down to meet Kiran and Sharena.

"No, thankfully. But I lived right next to the woods so I was kind of freaked out. But as far as I know, no one pulled a trick like that. What was really absurd were the clown hunts."

"The what?"

"Yeah, so a bunch of people would get together and form groups to march into the woods and hunt for clowns. None were found, so they were pretty pointless. I think it was just mob mentality."

"I wanted to visit your world, but now I'm starting to have doubts." was all Alfonse said before he walked away.


End file.
